Below is a list of some awesome food deserts that are doing awesome things to help eliminate food deserts!

1. Stager is the business development manager at Uplift Solutions, a New Jersey-based nonprofit consultancy and community development financial institution that supports food businesses, governments, nonprofits, healthcare systems, and other organizations in improving access to food, promoting good health, and investing capital in underserved communities.

2. Growing Home has provided education and job training in the area for 15 years. As community members developed a quality of life plan for the area, they included access to fresh food on the list in addition to new jobs and training. Growing Home works to thread all of these problems together, growing food on vacant lots while also using its farm to provide a hands-on paid job opportunity to people with barriers to employment.

3. The Arizona-based mobile produce market Fresh Express, which has served more than 22,000 customers in its three years of service, not only sells fresh produce at wholesale prices to senior centers, it also partners with UMOM New Day Centers, a family housing and shelter for homeless families.

4. StarkFresh has started a community garden here in Stark County, Ohio. The group also works to innovate and educate ways to combat systematic poverty and provide equitable food access throughout Stark County.

5. Minerva Area Food Pantry Council is a group of five food pantries serving the Minerva Area and works to provide help to those who are short on good, healthy food. They offer food distributions to low income families several times a month and also offer help to pay for rent, utilities or medicine!

City, rural, or suburban? How does region impact food deserts?

The Appalachian region of the United States is beset by food deserts. In practice, this means that numerous Appalachian citizens lack access to vegetables, fruits, and other whole foods: the nutritious stuff of life. Appalachian food deserts were caused due to a huge decrease in demand for coal in many counties throughout the Appalachian region which caused an economic depression. Due to this many stores, such as Walmart are leaving the area and taking with it the only access that people had to fresh vegetables, fruits, and other whole foods. When Walmart came into the region they ran out many local Appalachian grocery stores, now leaving these people with nothing. However, this has caused the Appalachian people to once more be strong and band together by setting up community based farmers markets. Such as this one in Scott County, TN:

Right here in Stark County we are looking to farmer’s markets and community gardens to help alleviate food deserts as well. For years, grocery stores have left inner-city neighborhoods for the suburbs, in search of population with greater buying power. This has caused a lot of problems for people in the Canton area. Many people in the area do not have access to cars which means that they have to walk, bike, or take the bus. You may not be able to get all of your groceries in one trip if you have to carry it all yourself and walk, bike, or take the bus back. Due to this, Canton is working to create more community gardens and farmer’s markets. StarkFresh is an organization that is taking great strides to help combat food deserts in Canton.

One of the biggest ways that we can help combat food deserts is through community involvement. Whether that means starting a community garden or getting different churches and non-profits to help out, when more people are involved more people benefit. One business that is doing great at getting the community involved is Muggswiggz, check out this post from Carolyn at the Coffee Review.

Maybe you can adopt some of the business techniques that Muggswiggz is using to get the community in their doors to help get your community more involved! Thoughts?

Why do food deserts exist? What is food insecurity? How do people live and eat in a food desert?

Below we can see a picture of what a typical meal would look like for food insecure people.

People living in food deserts sometimes don’t have cars and can’t get around very well. They usually eat a lot of unhealthy and microwavable foods because the closest store to them is the local convenience store around the corner. Often times people wish that they could eat better, but don’t know where to begin. 

Below we can see what a meal could look like with the help of their community for food insecure people.

One way we can combat food insecurity is by starting a community garden where we can grow green beans and potatoes. We can also advocate within our communities for produce distribution, where people can come and get food from a pantry or local church. The meal above was created by someone living in a food desert who made a meal using resources such as this.

Over the summer we had an activity so that our volunteers could get a better idea of what living in a food desert and what some of the hard decisions our homeowners faced on a daily basis. One of our scenarios looked like this:

Dave and Suzanne have been married for 14 years. He works in a local factory. She is a teacher. They have health insurance that pays most of the cost for Dave’s blood pressure medication and Suzanne’s migraine medication. They want to make healthy food choices for their family. (Their children are 5 and 9 years old.) The closest grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables is 60 miles away. In the winter, it could take as long as 2 hours each direction.

Question: Should they use they use their fuel budget to drive the distance for healthy foods which will last them about a week OR drive to the convenience store/ gas station 10 minutes down the road to buy canned goods and cheaper, less healthy food and beverages that could last them a month?

Answer: There is no right or wrong answer.

I decided to interview one of my homeowners to see how applicable this was.

Q: How far away do you have to drive to get fresh fruits and vegetables?

A: We have to drive about 30 minutes to the Walmart in Oneida.

Q: Do you have access to car/how do you get there?

A: We don’t personally have a car, but our kids have one. Sometimes they will let us borrow their car and other times we all just make the trek together. It’s hard though, our car isn’t very reliable and we struggle to pay for gas their and back so then by the time we do get to Walmart it makes it hard for us to make the decision to buy fresh fruits and vegetables versus cheaper less healthy decisions.

Q: Are you taking any steps to try and combat living in a food desert?

A: We grow our own tomatoes and we raise chickens. We have fresh eggs every morning. We know many of our neighbors who also keep many animals like chickens, goats, and pigs as well.

These are the harsh realities that nobody is telling you about living in a food desert. These are the kinds of decisions that people are facing on daily basis living in a food desert.

The term food desert was introduced in the early 1990s in western Scotland, where it was used to describe the poor access to nutritious foods experienced by residents of a public housing development.

The incidence of diabetes among US adults doubled between 1996 and 2007, and “type 2 diabetes” (a variant of the disease that is often caused by obesity) may account for 90 to 95 percent of these cases. One of the first countries to attempt to make inroads into the problem of food deserts was the United Kingdom; however, its Food Poverty (Eradication) Bill of 2001 failed passage.

The United States also took steps to improve access to healthy foods, introducing the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, which was followed by an evaluation of the prevalence of food deserts in the country. 

In 2010 U.S. Pres. Barack Obama proposed the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), which encouraged retailers to bring healthy foods to impoverished urban and rural communities.

On the national level, First Lady Michelle Obama has spearheaded the “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, which includes a goal of eradicating food deserts by 2017 with a $400 million investment from the government focused on providing tax breaks to supermarkets that open in food deserts.

In conclusion, the term “food desert” is a fairly new term and has only just begun within the past 30 or so years. While food scarcity seems to have always been a problem among the poor, it seems to be growing at alarming rates and with adverse side affects for many people all around the world.

New York City, New York

• In 2008, three million city residents lived in a food desert. This could be caused because of an increase in fast food restaurants within the city limits.
• The term “food swamp” is becoming increasingly common, referring to areas with a disproportionate ratio of fast food and convenience stores to grocery stores.

Atlanta, Georgia

• In 2015, almost 2 million Georgia residents (about 500,000 children) reside in what can be classified as a food desert.
• Because of this obesity rates rose from h30.7% to 31.4% between 2016 and 2017.

Detroit, Michigan

• In 2018, the Michigan Department of Agriculture reported that there were 19 neighborhoods in the city of Detroit that could be classified as a food desert.
• In addition to this, a 2017 study found over 30,000 residents have no access to a full-line grocery store.
• Because of this 30.8% of adults are considered to be obese.

Chicago, Illinois

• Studies from 2006 indicate over 500,000 (mostly African Americans) Chicago residents lived in food deserts with one third of those residents being children. .
• Illinois has the 18th highest adult obesity rate in the country and Chicago obesity rates are over 30%. 

San Francisco, California

• In 2013, it was estimated that over 125,000 people living in the Bay Area reside in food deserts.
• In 2011, in the Bay Area urban town of Hunters Point, 40,000 residents had to travel several miles to the nearest major food store.

Seattle, Washington

• In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined that there were 125,000 residents across 17 areas in and around the city lived in food deserts.
• The University of Washington performed a 2012 study and found that only 3% of the “vulnerable populations” throughout King County could walk to an affordable supermarket.
• One out of five adults in King County is obese.  

Camden, New Jersey

• In 2016, there was only one supermarket for Camden’s almost 75,000 residents, Cousin’s Supermarket.
• A survey performed in 2011 by Reinvestment Fund found that about 10 percent, or about 900,000, Jersey residents, did not have reasonable access to fresh food.
• In 2011, the federal government considered 134 places in NJ food deserts.

New Orleans, Louisiana

• In 2017, nearly 50,000 New Orleans residents did not have a single supermarket in their neighborhood.  

Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota

• A 2016 study indicated nearly a third of the population lives in a food desert.
• Minnesota’s obesity rate increased in 2016, going from 2015’s 26.1% to 27.8%.

Memphis, Tennessee

• In 2018 according to the United States Department of Agriculture declared Memphis a food desert due to a lack of public transportation.

Over the summer I lived in a food desert. A food desert is defined by the USDA as a “part of the country vapid of fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas”. I lived in Scott County, Tennessee where there is a low income and no access to fresh fruit and vegetables within 10 miles.

At first, I didn’t even notice the lack of fruit and vegetables. I was having the time of my life, eating fried chicken, cornbread, banana pudding, a various assortment of barbecue meats, and of course Frito pie. But after awhile all of the deep fried foods and southern cooking was starting to catch up to me. For the first time in my life, I found myself actually craving a salad!

This is one I started to notice how hard it was to eat healthy. When I was out and about driving around the county I would stop into various different gas stations to fill up and I would also check inside for a bite to eat. Many gas stations had small “produce” sections that were usually filled with browning bananas and apples that just did not look that tantalizing.

There was a Walmart in town that had a little better produce options. But, as I learned from my homeowners many of them did not have the means to get transportation to or from there and if they did it was just too expensive for them to afford. I was shocked to learn that a majority of their meals consisted of pop and TV dinners because that was all that they could afford.

Later in the summer I moved to Knott County, Kentucky. Knott County was also considered to be a food dessert only because of their lack of transportation to and from areas. I remember eating my first fresh fruit of the summer, a peach, from a farmer’s market. I remember rolling down the hills of Eastern Kentucky, juice dripping down my chin. When was the last time I had a piece of fruit? I remember going to Fazoli’s in town one day and ordering a salad. How long had it been since I had eaten a salad? A food that I usually had to force myself to eat and now found myself to be craving. The answer was before I had moved down to Appalachia.

Can you imagine living your whole life never having eaten a fresh piece of fruit? What would happen if you never ate a salad? For some fresh fruit and vegetables are dreams. My wish is that through this blog we can together better educate ourselves on food deserts and find out how we can help out those living with food insecurity.

For more information on Food Deserts, check out: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts

To find a Food Desert near you: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/